


The Heart Thief

by sapphosghost



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-22 17:03:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6087603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphosghost/pseuds/sapphosghost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One-shot based on the sneak peek for 3x06. Clarke finds beauty in the world again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Heart Thief

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for 3x06

Being on the run from the twelve clans and skaikru wasn’t exactly conducive to artistic endeavors. Paper was scarce, time and the willingness to let herself focus on something other than putting one foot in front of the other even more so. She had been in the woods for three months without so much as an inkling toward the creative, but she had been blocked for a while before leaving, too. Mount Weather had left her scarred, and there wasn’t much beauty left in her world that deserved being put to parchment.

But Lexa lying there, asleep with a book held loosely in her hand, made her change her mind.

It wasn’t her intention to linger after she had fallen asleep. It wasn’t her intention for Lexa to fall asleep, period. She had come to her room that morning to talk about what had happened at Arkadia, to make decisions about next moves and how to convince the clans that blood might not always need to have blood. But Lexa had been reclining, which in and of itself was odd. Relaxed was not something Clarke usually associated with Lexa, but when she entered and the sun filtered through the translucent, tattered curtains, light fracturing across Lexa’s intent and concentrated face, Clarke was taken aback. Lexa reading a book as the world around them falls apart seemed shortsighted, at best.

She stood at the door, head cocked just slightly, watching. Lexa remained head down, legs stretched out in front of her, eyes flicking left to right, line to line, unmoved.

“Must be a good book,” Clarke said, breaking the silence and startling Lexa out of her focus. She dog-eared the page, trying vainly to straighten her posture as she put the book aside and stood to acknowledge Clarke’s entrance into the room.

“My apologies, I didn’t hear the guards announce you.”

Clarke smirked unintentionally, then quickly recovered. “They didn’t, I told them you were expecting me.”

Lexa’s brow knitted tightly, an effort to remember if they had discussed this meeting before hand. Clarke, recognizing her confusion, continued. “You mentioned when we returned last night that we would talk today, go over our options for what to do about Arkadia.”

Her face relaxed at the reminder, and failed to stop the small smile that turned up one corner of her mouth. She gestured to the chair across from the lounge where she had been resting, and Clarke sat down, sinking into the comfort of its arms. It had been a long time since she’d sat on anything except packed dirt or cold steel.

“I should have been announced,” she said as Lexa got comfortable across from her. “I didn’t mean to intrude. You looked so… entranced?”

Lexa couldn’t help but broaden her smile as Clarke pointed to the book on the chair beside her. She picked it up, flipping to the page she had been reading when Clarke walked in, and read the passage aloud.

“ _’His soul sat up. It met me. Those kinds of souls always do - the best ones. The ones who rise up and say “I know who you are and I am ready. Not that I want to go, of course, but I will come.” Those souls are always light because more of them have been put out. More of them have already found their way to other places.’_ ”

Clarke listened intently, nodding but not fully understanding. The words were beautiful, but she needed more. “What does it mean?” she asked, leaning forward, opening her chest and making her curiosity known.

“It is a book about Death,” Lexa said quietly, the smile still lingering at the edges. “Death following a little girl during one of the wars before the Last War, and Death becoming fond of the girl’s resilience against the horrors she sees in this war, how she survives against the odds and how he continues to take the souls of those around her, but never her.”

“You really don’t ever talk about anything but death, do you?” Clarke teased, returning the smile. “And I take it you see yourself as the little girl?”

Lexa shook her head, almost solemnly. “No, Clarke, I see her as you.”

Clarke sat stunned, searching for the proper response. Lexa, seeing that she was finding none, opened the book and continued reading aloud.

“ _’This one was sent out by the breath of an accordion, the odd taste of champagne in summer, and the art of promise-keeping. He lay in my arms and rested. There was an itchy lung for a last cigarette and an immense, magnetic pull toward the basement, for the girl who was his daughter and was writing a book down there that he hoped to read one day…’_ ”

Clarke let her read a while, listening, taking it in. There had been so few real, paper-bound books on the Ark. They had had entire libraries digitized many years before the Last War, and everything she had ever read had been electronic. She watched the flip of the pages, listened to their rustling as Lexa adjusted the book in her hand; studied the curl of Lexa’s lips as she pronounced each word with the purpose of someone trying to make a point. She was so intent on observation that she almost didn’t notice when Lexa stopped and closed the book.

“I’d rather that you read this in its entirety,” she said, setting it aside. “As I’m close to the end, I’ll have someone bring it to you when I’m finished. Along,” she got to her feet and went to the corner, pulling a canvas sheet off the tall object that it covered. “With this.”

Underneath the canvas was a wooden easel, ornately detailed and holding a leather-bound portfolio, a box of charcoal resting beside it. Clarke got to her feet and walked toward it.

“How…” she started, but couldn’t find the words. Shaky fingers reached out and traced the edge of the folio, the leather soft and worn and holding newly pressed paper inside, tinted light brown from the wood pulp.

“How did I know?” Lexa finished for her. “I would not be a very good Commander if I didn’t know my Ambassadors’ secrets. And this is not a secret you should keep, Clarke. We may be at war, but it was you who once told me that life should be about more than just surviving. Life needs art, and art in many forms. My books, your drawings. You were right that we deserve more. And we should fight for the time to enjoy it.”

She took the folio and the box or charcoal from the easel and handed them to Clarke. “Why don’t you practice while I finish the book? We can discuss more serious matters once life has had art for a day.”

So they had resumed their places, Lexa on the lounge and Clarke in the chair, facing each other. Lexa flipped through a few pages of the book, while Clarke sketched absently, not sure where to begin. She started with the room, rough sketching Lexa’s bed, surrounded inexplicably by candles despite the late morning light. She kept getting the perspective wrong, nothing felt natural; not as it had back on the Ark, back when things felt simpler, when there was beauty in the hope of Earth. Each new sketch felt more forced than the next, and frustration built in her fingers. They tensed and things worsened. Lines became harsh and jagged instead of fluid. Her teeth ground together, and each attempt and loosening her muscles only caused further misery, too much thinking about the task at had. She pulled the charcoal into her fist, intent on crushing it and throwing it across the room, but it was only when she looked up that she noticed that Lexa’s head had lolled, and she had fallen asleep.

There.

The sun cast a streak of light across her face, highlighting the rouge in her cheeks, the pale pink of her lips. Her mouth was ever so slightly open, her breathing even and peaceful. Her hands, usually hard and held in fists, fell loose across her stomach, the book open and unfinished. She had never seen the commander – Lexa – so vulnerable, so open, so young. She had been in command for years before Clarke had ever known her, and despite all that, she was still just that: a young woman, carrying so much weight on her shoulders.

And in this vulnerability, Clarke found beauty. In Lexa, she found something worth putting to parchment.

Her hand moved of its own accord. She didn’t look at the paper in her lap, but studied the curve of Lexa’s jaw, the pout of her lips, the rise and fall of her chest, her fingers twitching in dream. The charcoal did as it was meant to, painted the picture, presented her vision. The vision of a sleeping dragon, about to wake in a wave of fire, to devour her enemies. But until then, she laid dormant, and completely innocent.

Clarke looked down for the details. She checked the curl of Lexa’s lashes, the length of her nails, the toggles on her clothes. She was finishing the braid at her temple when a gasp from the couch pulled her from the revery of studying everything that was Lexa.

The book had fallen to the floor, and Lexa looked around, distressed, confused. A bad dream, Clarke thought. She recalled a similar feeling, waking up in Lexa’s company not long after they’d met. When their trust was tenuous and their cumulative losses significantly less. She recalled what Lexa had said to her in forest, and she echoed now, feeling it deeply.

“I’m here,” she said, and Lexa’s face softened when their eyes met. “You’re safe.”


End file.
